Die Welt reviews Leif Ove’s recital in Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle
“Even though it is the 150th anniversary of the birth of the Finn – Jean Sibelius – this does not mean that you particularly enjoy a focus that essentially takes in just his seven symphonies, the popular Karelia suite and the violin concerto.
There‘s so much more to discover: little–known incidental music, string quartets and the piano music. In his Laeiszhalle recital the Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes gave us the lyric pieces ‘Kyllikki’ op. 41 and excerpts from the “five piano pieces” op. 75, as well as the “five sketches” op. 114 – startling samples of Sibelius’ piano work.
… Nobel and majestically he shaped the sound in “The Spruce” whose quiet opening is interrupted by a nervous middle relapse in stoic silence. But Andsnes is also a quick-change artist who with Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 31 no. 3 took a completely different approach. Here dominated an extreme density and inner logic … Although technically very difficult, his perfomance of excerpts from Debussy’s “Douze Études” sounded light. At the end came Chopin’s Impromptus, Op. 29, which breathed calmly, and the Nocturne in F major op. 15 no. 1, whose cantabile theme you could hardly imagine being played with more fragility.”
Source: Die Welt